The Official Blog of the Handcrafted Soap & Cosmetics Guild

Tag: HSCG member benefits

Pictures. Who doesn’t love checking out a great picture? We are *ahem* well acquainted with the dangers of the picture wonderland/time sinkhole known as Pinterest and we’d venture to guess you and your customers are big fans of pretty pictures as well. That’s why the HSCG has a Soap Gallery available for the public to browse your beautiful creations, but is your company in it?

The Soap Gallery displays images of soap made by Professional members (yep, this is another member benefit). Clicking the company name or image links to the company’s “FindaSoapmaker” listing. In addition, the images in the Soap Gallery also appear around the website (basically, wherever we can sneak them in to show you off!). Those of you with alphabetically disadvantaged company names (Zyzzyva Soap Co, anyone?) will be relieved to know that images are shuffled and displayed in random order to maximize variety and equalize exposure given to each company.

So how do you get yourself into this gallery? So glad you asked. Keep those softballs coming. From the HSCG website homepage, hover over the Members section and point yourself to the Soap Gallery section, as shown below.

This will prompt you to log in (if you aren’t already). Once you’re logged in, this page will explain exactly how to submit your photo, tips and tricks, and all of the format restrictions. Once you have a photo in the gallery, you can revisit this page to see the picture currently on file for your company (so cool!). The only pre-requisite to submitting a picture, other than being a professional member, is to have an online Soapmaker Listing (you have already set yours up, right??).

If you already have a gallery listing, have you taken advantage of the larger size photo? We’re now accepting pictures that are 280 pixels wide by 185 pixels high to be featured on the homepage. Don’t worry, if the last part of that sentence sounded like gobbledygook, go ahead and send your original photo and we’ll help you crop it down to size.

Cosmetic makers, never fear. We will be establishing another gallery just for your creations. Stay tuned and we’ll let you know when it’s ready for your submissions. In the meantime, send your best shots to the social media crew and we’ll give you some love on the HSCG Pinterest boards.

Hold the phones – did you catch our benefit announcements for US HSCG members last month? In case your spring passed in a flurry of activity (not the least of which may have been the 16th Annual Conference in Raleigh!), let us refresh your memory on the latest and greatest benefits for members:

If you ship oodles and oodles, you can now save on your shipping costs with discounts from UPS. Even better, you can link your current UPS account to this new discount or open and sign up for a new account through the program. Discounts apply on everything from residential ground shipments to shipments to Canada and even next day air. Save even more as you ship more, up to 32% off normal prices (sweet!). You ship product every day – while not let the company that loves logistics worry about your shipping? Sign up is super easy. Visit the UPS discounts page in the Member Area to find out more, sign up and save.

And what leads to those shipments? Why, sales, of course. You already know that accepting credit cards is critical to getting those sales; if you are shopping around for merchant services, check out ProPay. With a ProPay system, you can accept credit cards anytime, anywhere. Along with free device that turns your smartphone into a credit card reader, ProPay offers shopping cart integration for your website, and a debit card that allows you to spend funds directly from your ProPay account. And when you need help, ProPay has real, live US-based customer service. Sign up today and start processing credit cards for as little as 2.19%. Check out the ProPay merchant services page in the Member Area for all the details and to start your merchant services account.

Do you have a favorite member benefit? Or ideas for more? Let us know in the comments!